Monday, April 27, 2009

Bella, the Morgan mare left to go visit Jeremy Tilton at Liberty Horses to ready her for the show season. This is a horse that was boarded by us since September. Jeremy will do good things for her and her owner.

Copper Casanova arrived.He's being boarded here with the arrangement that we can use him for the trails and even for shows if we want to. He's a handsome bugger who needs a job, and he's for sale. Anyone interested? He's an eight year old APHA gelding that stood at stud until last fall. He was broke to ride as a three year old then left to be a stud since. He came to us very rusty but is coming along very well. We took him on his first trail ride in the Machickanee on the 17th and he was super. Crossed bridges, went thru the stream, ponied Kirby behind him. We had trucks and dirt bikes pass us and he never batted an eye. He doesn't get rushy or excited when he saw other horses behind him or ahead of him on the trail.Yesterday we hauled him to Heartland Stables in Custer to attend his first show. Again, he just takes it all in. Doesn't act spooky or jumpy, and doesn't get excited. The purpose was just to take him there to ride him around the commotion, but he ended up in the ring in a walk/trot class and placed 4th out of 13 horses! Looking forward to many more trail rides with him in the near future.

Last week we found Jin in the pasture with his blanket all tangled around him and he was lame. He either got twisted up in the blanket or he was rough-housing with Wyatt, or both, but he's got some soreness in his back. It seemed to get better during the week, but he wasn't sound enough for the show yesterday. Knowing Jin, he'll be perfectly sound today, the big turd.

We've had nothing but rain for the last four days. The pastures are soggy mudholes. I've had to turn the boys out onto the big pasture just to give them some relief from the slop, but it kills me to see them tear it up. Oh well.

I've made absolutely zero progress on my veggie garden. Good intentions got pushed aside by other chores, but I think I'll be able to get to it this week.

Wyatt leaves for his new home on Wednesday. We'll be sad to see him go, but he's moving to a nice place with a new pasture buddy.

Thursday, April 9, 2009

The gardening bug.Since moving to our little "farmette" two years ago, I've only had two small raised beds that were home to a few tomato plants, some green beans, and some peppers. Last year I planted some eggplant - that very handsome yet tasteless plant that served as a medium to transfer garlic and parmesan to my mouth. I don't think I'll grow any more eggplant, but I'll continue eating the garlic and parmesan.

I have plans to build a few more raised beds this weekend and start thinking about what veggies are gonna go where. There's an area on the south end of the house that will be a perfect spot. The fence and the house come together in an "L" and it's a pain to mow, so I'm just gonna claim that area as the new garden. There's a hose spigot on that end, and I'd like to tap into the downspout and put in a rain barrel. Also in the plans is a two-tiered potting bench that will double as a cold frame for my pepper plants.

We had a nice veggie garden at our last house. It was work, but rewarding work. The original garden was 50' x 100', but had gone to the pickers as the previous owners were elderly and couldn't care for it for a few years. The weeds and growth were over four feet tall, and the ground was as hard as a rock from the many years of added lime. After several weekends of hard work we got all the weeds out, cut the veggie patch down to 30' x 30', and seeded the rest into lawn. That eventually got trimmed down to 16' x 16' with raised beds and wood chipped paths.That's my intent for the new garden. Same idea, but some minor changes to keep thing interesting. I'll take pics of my progress and post them on the blog.

Wednesday, April 8, 2009

Sometime during the night I was rustled from my slumber. The moonlight was pouring into the bedroom through the south window. Austin was lying next to me. He was sleeping on his back with all four sticking up in the air (he sleeps like this all the time) with his head toward the foot of the bed. This made for his opposite end to be near to my face. Not nice. Anyway, he wriggled a little, his tail straightened out, and I heard a "pffffft".